Bible Question:
The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301, titled "Bible Questions and Answers." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Question What is the right Christian stand on dancing? Answer Now, I don’t want to get into this in a long detail. Let me just say this, dancing is in the Bible, to start with. There’s no question about that! David danced before the Lord. There was dancing and praising God in Psalm 150. In the Old Testament, there was dancing that was exalting and praising the Lord. Now if you were, however, to use that as a defense of modern-day dancing, you would find yourself ill pressed to do that. The dancing that was done in the Old Testament was done by an individual before God as the full expression of joy! I’m not even too sure that there were any particular steps! I don’t think somebody did—you know, when they got really blessed—they did the “funky chicken” or whatever that thing is, you know… I don’t think they had a new wave of Hebrew dances swinging through the lands. What it means is that they praised God by the expression of the body! They just abandoned themselves to the joy that was theirs in God. There wasn’t any indication that it was ever a partner thing or there ever was anything closely or remotely related to sexual stimulation involved. But, on the other hand, if you study Old Testament history, you’ll find out that they pagans danced orgy dances and the whole key to what they were doing was to stimulate the sex drive. That’s what we’ve inherited today, not the worshipful expression of the body as it frees itself to just glorify God and to express its joy as it spins and twirls and jumps and leaps and praises God! You know who would do the dance in the New Testament? The guy in Acts that got healed. He was dancing all the way through the temple, leaping and jumping and praising God! Now that God likes. But hanging on somebody and going around a smoke-filled room with the lights out while somebody sings a suggestive song isn’t remotely related to the Word of God. You know, we used to say when we were at Christian school—I went to a Christian school that didn’t have any dances, you know—we were really well protected. A guy became a Christian, you know, and he said, “You know, we used to go to the dance because we’d take a girl out and take her to the dance, get her all warmed up, and then we could go out and neck.” He said, “Then when I became a Christian, I realized you don’t dance, you just go right out and neck.” Yeah, true, right? The point is, anything—anything!—that in any way stimulates desire for another person physically, outside marriage, outside that which honors and glorifies God in every part, is to be disregarded and turned away from totally. Totally. And believe me, the way the world sets up dances, they aren’t dances to praise God. That’s the only kind of dancing Israel ever did. Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by: Tony Capoccia Bible Bulletin Board Box 119 Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022 Our websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com Email: tony@biblebb.com Online since 1986 |
Bible Answer: Since "can" in the question "Can a Christian dance?" refers to knowing how to or being physically able to, and encompasses no other consideration, the only correct answer to the question as it is posed must be that some can and some can't. :-) --Hank |